Coronavirus In Illinois: Positivity Rate Continues To Decline As State's First Vaccinations Are Administered
CHICAGO (CBS) -- While experiencing a slight uptick in new COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalizations in the past day, Illinois saw its average case positivity rate continue to decline on Tuesday, as the first coronavirus vaccines were administered to healthcare workers across the state.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 7,359 new confirmed and probable coronavirus cases on Tuesday, including 117 additional deaths. Both represent slight increases from Monday's metrics, although the state also reported a slight increase in testing over the past 24 hours, so the state's seven-day average case positivity rate dropped slightly.
The average case positivity rate stands at 8.6%, the lowest it's been since Nov. 4. The state's positivity rate has largely been trending downward over the past month, after reaching as high as 13.2% on Nov. 13. However it's still more than double the 3.5% positivity rate reported at the start of October.
Since the start of the pandemic, Illinois has reported a total of 863,477 cases of COVID-19, including 14,509 deaths.
As of Monday night, 4,965 virus patients were hospitalized in Illinois including 1,057 patients in the ICU and 598 patients on ventilators. That now marks two days in a row Illinois has been below 5,000 COVID hospitalizations statewide, after experiencing more than 5,000 per day for more than a month.
While hospitalizations seem to have started trending downward since peaking at 6,175 on Nov. 20, there are still far more COVID-19 patients in the hospital in mid-December than at the start of the fall surge in early October.
Illinois is averaging 5,086 coronavirus hospitalizations per day over the last week, more than triple the average of about 1,500 per day at the start of October. During the first wave of the pandemic, the state peaked at an average of 4,822 hospitalizations per day in early May.
Although the state's positivity rate and hospitalizations have started trending downwards in recent weeks, deaths from the virus have yet to take a clear turn for the better since the start of the fall surge in October.
Illinois is averaging 149 deaths per day so far in December, compared to 111 per day during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in mid-May.
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